OPEC+ will change nothing in December. Bold. Decisive. Free.
The cartel keeps its oil output targets steady. A tougher call for 2027 looms. Nobody knows what it means, including the people who said it.
Here is the fun part. Gulf members have been boosting exports after months of conflict-related disruption. Most are still pumping well below their targets.
Read that again. The targets are fiction. The group agreed to produce a number nobody is producing, then agreed to keep that number the same. That is not policy. That is a New Year's resolution with a flight to Riyadh.
Picture the meeting. Delegates sit around a table. Someone says, "Shall we raise the targets?" Someone else says, "We cannot hit the old ones." Everyone nods. Motion carries. Lunch.
Retail traders will now stare at crude charts for six hours. They will draw a line. Then another line. Then a triangle. The triangle will mean something to them. It will mean nothing to Saudi Arabia.
Technical analysis has a rule here. When a cartel does nothing about a quota it cannot fill, the correct trade is to go outside. Look at a tree. Trees have no targets and they still outperform your Roth IRA.
The 2027 problem is the real story, apparently. It will be tougher. Tougher than a conflict that disrupted exports for months. I assume they will address it in a meeting. Possibly two.
Meanwhile, you will buy a call option on this. You will call it conviction. Your broker will call it revenue.
OPEC+ held its targets steady. That is more discipline than your portfolio has shown since 2021.
Photo by on Unsplash
Leave a Comment